Lacquerware are objects decoratively covered with lacquer. Lacquerware includes small or large objects or containers, tableware, and furniture painted with lacquer. Before lacquering, the surface is sometimes painted with pictures, carved, or inlaid with shell and other materials. East Asian countries have long traditions of lacquer work, going back several thousand years in the cases of China, Japan and Korea. The best known lacquer, an urushiol-based lacquer common in East Asia, is derived from the dried sap of Toxicodendron vernicifluum. Other types of lacquers are processed from a variety of plants and insects. The traditions of lacquer work in Southeast Asia and the Americas are also ancient and originated independently. True lacquer is not made outside Asia, but some imitations, such as Japanning in Europe, or parallel techniques, are often loosely referred to a “lacquer.”
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